SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES

Two Russian Nuclear-Monitoring Stations Went Silent After Nuclear Reactor Mishap

Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via Reuters

Two Russian nuclear monitoring stations meant to detect nuclear radiation went suspiciously quiet in the days after a mysterious explosion at a missile test site in northern Russia this month. The Wall Street Journal reports that the stations in Dubna and Kirov stopped transmitting data just as levels of radiation spiked in towns near the accident site. The monitoring stations reported “communication and network issues” as the reason for the silence, although some analysts suspect Moscow may have been trying to restrict evidence of the accident instead. “It is a very odd coincidence that these stations stopped sending data shortly after the Aug. 8 incident,” Daryl Kimball, of the Arms Control Association, a nongovernmental organization promoting arms-control policies, told the Journal. “It is probably because they want to obscure the technical details of the missile-propulsion system they are trying and failing to develop.”